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Category Archives: CharJoJones

I guess you haven’t lived in cyberspace until your website has been hacked.

I’ve lived now.

Last week, I was guest speaker for the Fredericksburg Parkinson’s Support Group. We had a great time, sharing together how humor can help you cope with difficult situations. At the end of my talk, I invited attendees to come to this site for more information about me and about Eldercare Is Making Me Fat.

Afterward, I was signing books, and enjoying that giddy feeling you get (I? get) when a talk has gone well and I feel as though I’ve connected. People were so nice and eager to tell their stories.

That’s what I expected when one lovely woman came up to me and said quietly, “I looked you up on Google last night because I wanted to learn a little more about you.”

“Oh, thank you,” I replied, thinking I knew what was coming next.

“I think you should know you have been hacked,” she said sweetly. “And there are some awful words on your site.”

That sent me in a panicked rush for my smartphone.

“Just Google your full name,” she said helpfully.

I did. And sure enough, the first result was for my home page, with the ominous message This website may have been hacked.

Right under that, instead of my carefully crafted mini-bio, sat a string of words that had pretty much nothing to do with me.

Prominent among them was a pharmacopoeia of solutions for the dreaded ED.

There was the one that starts with a v, and the one with a c, even the one with an l. (I’m not going to type them out for Heaven’s sake, in case the whole thing gets flagged again.)

There was also something about Jamaica (with a small j) Negril (small n) and s*x.

I don’t need to tell you what I’ve been doing this weekend. And it is not holding hands with Herman, sitting side-by-side in matching claw foot bathtubs. (One day soon I’ll write about just how demented that image is.)

I didn’t see this one coming . . . although apparently everything else was in plain view. High end (oh dear) fitness wear retailer Lululemon has recalled the latest batch of its most popular yoga pants because they are too revealing.

My first thought was, “Well. Duh.” Take it from someone who has had a bad experience or two. Spandex can only do so much and then it metaphorically snaps back over the very, very fine line between nicely compacted and squeezed to the point of obscenity. People of WalMart, you know what I’m talking about. And I mean that in the kindest way.

Stretch, however, doesn’t seem to be Lululemon’s problem. In one of the most roundabout ways ever of saying I see Paris, I see France,the company’s own media release explains:

“The ingredients, weight and longevity qualities of the pants remain the same but the coverage does not, resulting in a level of sheerness in some of our women’s black Luon bottoms that falls short of our very high standards.”

Let’s not dwell on it, but I also know firsthand about bottoms falling short of very high standards. Ironically, that is one of the reasons I, myself, do yoga: to try to keep the whole thing from sagging southward. So for now, I’ll continue to downward dog in my garden variety fleece capris, one size too large.

And it’s about time. I have been struggling for more than three years to figure out where a *ahem* well-seasoned writer like me belongs in the bloated publishing landscape of this century. Here’s how long ago I started out: I finished my first freelance assignment in 1984 on a portable Smith and Corona tucked on a table in the guest bedroom closet. In 2009, when I ended my twelve-year detour as a librarian and started poking around to determine where I could fit in as a writer again, everything had changed. Every. Thing. But now I think I’ve found a niche. Or two. I feel like I’m back. I know I’m excited. I hope you’re happy too. I’ll be blogging about my first book, Eldercare Is Making Me Fat, about writing, about self-publishing, about what a long strange trip it’s been, about my Boomer life (no, really?) and whatever else happens to flow from my rapidly atrophying brain to my fingers on any given day. Thanks for reading! See you back here soon.